The leash on Muffin is the problem. If I can untangle that, I can get the animals to the surface.
My chest hitches with the automatic need to inhale.
I fight instinct.
Closing my eyes, I will away the pain that the animals’ claws cause on my forearms, going by feel to separate them. The water is warm and salty, not chlorinated. One collar—no leash. A second head and collar—no leash. Teeth sink into my hand and I shake them off.
My lungs spasm.
Finally, I find Muffin’s collar and free the leash, shoving him up with a push. Mere seconds have gone by, maybe twenty, but more than I can bear for much longer.
Chuckles’ basket is twisted in the leash with Muffin, their bodies impossible to disentangle, and someone bites me again.
Black spots begin to fill in my vision, yet my eyes are closed.
The serene simplicity of this underwater world stands in stark contrast to the calamity above, and as my hands slow down and find the leash, unweaving it until, alas, Spritzy floats up and away, allowing me to shove Chuckles up, too, I feel a stillness.
They’re free.
I kick my legs hard, willing my body up. Time for me to be free, too.
The animals are rising in the buoyant waters, but I am not. I reach back to my waistband, to find the hooks and buttons to undo my skirts. The fasteners are a network of laces and metal, of buttons and fabric, old combined with new to make beauty.
I kick.
I try to breathe in.
I fight the impulse.
Panic sets in, my hands more frantic as I hold onto the pattern in my mind for how to organize my own ascent, the orderly steps of actions to take to get sweet oxygen, to rise back to the surface and just breathe.
Just breathe and be.
And then I inhale water, my muscles too powerful to battle.
There is a point where instinct overrides self-preservation.
A loud splash at the surface makes me hope someone got the animals, and I bite my lips to stop from breathing in again, my chest going concave, the struggle to hold my breath one I am losing.
My fingers fumble and then strong arms grab me, wrenching my shoulder with a tearing sensation that makes my neck scream. One of the stranger’s arms slides under my bare armpits, pressing my breasts flat as the stranger’s second arm pulls the water down, down, down to drag me up, up up—
Ah.
Air.
He freed me.
“Hold onto the side. Hold onto the side,” a man’s voice urges. He’s kicking the water, treading next to me, one hand on mine as he guides my fingers to the curled cement edge, my hands shaking but capable.
“Get the paramedics!” he booms to the crowd, who I can’t see or hear, but know surround us.
Hacking and coughing, spitting out water, I try to breathe. My windpipe feels like it has shredded pieces of melted tires hanging from it, and I can’t cough hard enough to get the water out. A giant lily pad covers my shoulder, and as I finally find some semblance of a pattern for getting a thin, striated hole of air through my throat, I realize I’m still bare-breasted.
In public.
“Jesus, Amanda, please say something,” says Andrew, who is the man, drenched and next to me, holding my hand, his dark hair soaked and wrapped like feathers around his forehead, his white shirt clinging to his shoulders, the only part of him I can see. “Please. Oh, God, please say something.”
My vision begins to focus, the blackness fading, lingering only at the edges of what I can see, like a shadow that doesn’t know what to do with itself.
“Chuckles,” is all my hoarse throat can choke out.
“We got ’em!” James bellows back. “All three of these little stinkers are just fine thanks to you!”
I’m shaking, still trying to breathe, as a uniformed paramedic bends down and offers me a hand.
“Ah, no.” I look down. “Naked.” I move one hand and start to sink again.
Andrew winds one arm around my waist and holds me up, his fist filling with the thick cloth of my wet skirts. He looks at the paramedic.
“Got a knife?”
“A knife?”
“A blade. Anything. I need to cut her dress off.”
In seconds, the guy hands Andrew a knife and he cuts loose the wool tartan overlay, which slides down around my legs like a mermaid shedding her tail.
I take in a deep breath and cough. The next breaths feel more regular. Andrew’s hands are on my face, my shoulders, my back and waist, an endless sequence of touches that seem less about checking my status and more about verifying that I am above water and safe and really here.
Really here.
Wait.
He’s really here.
“You’re outside!” I gasp.
“And you’re insane!” he says with a finality that I can’t argue with. “What in the hell did you jump in the pool for?” His voice shakes with a kind of post-trauma agony that makes me wince. With a caring hand, he holds my waist, his strong legs kicking for me. Salty water drips into my eyes, the stinging bringing on more tears.
“To save the cat and doggies,” I croak out.
“You nearly died. Don’t you ever, ever do that again! What in the hell were you thinking?” A crack in his voice, then a deep, sharp inhale and he starts to breathe hard, his eyes boring into me like he can only keep me alive if he looks at me.
He can’t stop touching me, his steady kicking keeping him afloat, my own legs too weak to move. I’m clinging to the edge of the pool, one hand too sore to grasp anything. I look at it and see puncture wounds swelling at an alarmingly fast rate, the salt water lapping at them and hurting. My torso is smashed as far up against the cool mosaic of tiles as possible. I’ll probably have an imprint of that pattern permanently etched into my boobs and belly.
“But I didn’t die. I didn’t die because of you,” I say, resting my forehead against the edge. If I had the energy, I would look at him. Say more. Adrenaline that kept me going underwater drains out of me as if osmosis were at work, the water sucking all my focus from me. I am wet and my hand throbs and I am naked in front of other people and oh, God, Andrew is here with me.
“He shot out of that glass door over there like a human rocket when you jumped in, Amanda.” Mom is holding a wet Spritzy while James feeds the dog a piece of cheese. “Only stopped to rip off his suit jacket and shoes, leaped into the air, launched off the black iron fence and—” Emotion overtakes her. “James plucked the animals out with the net and scooped them up just as Andrew dove in.”
“You’re outside,” I repeat. “In the sunlight. In July.” Andrew’s face is inches from mine and he’s clearly unnerved, body vibrating so fast he’s making the water radiate away from him in rippling waves. It’s warm, like bath water, and it’s not even four p.m., so I know he’s not cold.
“I knew that dress would keep you on the bottom of the pool. Drown you.” He can barely say those last two words.
“Huh?”
“I was a competitive swimmer. We trained in weighted clothes. I knew the second you jumped in you were doomed. And my heart just about died on the spot, Amanda.” He presses his forehead against mine. “I ran out and dove in on pure instinct.”
“Just like me jumping in to save the animals.”
So many thoughts race through my mind as I float, his body protecting me, keeping me anchored to the pool wall so I can find my breath. Except I can’t feel the difference between my own air and Andrew’s, between the water and my body, for I’m bathed in the warmth of his proximity. What he just did tells me I do get to pick him, after all.
He didn’t just save me.
He saved himself.
A slow golf clap starts in the distance, then gets louder as Jessica Coffin begins it, other people joining in, not realizing the smirk on her face means the applause is born of sarcasm, not an invitation to celebrate. She holds up her cell phone and snaps photos the entire time.
Chuckles rubs against h
er leg, now free of all his human clothing and the basket.
And he pees on her lace-up high heels.
She screams.
I don’t care.
My chin starts to chatter against the backs of my hands.
“Thank you for the Yes album,” I say under my breath, as if talking to the water. “And, you know, for saving my life.”
“You’re welcome for both,” he says with a disbelieving sound of amusement. “But I don’t need your thanks. Just promise me you’ll never do that again.” He pulls me into the closest embrace you can manage while treading water. He smells like salt and pain, his scent a beacon for me to follow.
“I can’t promise I’ll never listen to ‘Roundabout’.” I shake my head.
He bites his lower lip as he holds me, my words muffled against his wet shoulder, his cheek scratching against my face.
“I see you’re recovering,” he says drolly. “Let’s get you out of here,” Andrew says softly, strong hand urging my own away from the pool’s edge, nudging me towards the set of stairs to ascend.
“I’m naked,” I whisper. “In public.” Most people among the wedding guests have the decency not to stare, but I can feel plenty of eyes on me, and the murmurs and titters of the crowd sound like bees buzzing in the distance.
“I know,” he says, low and sweet. His voice aches with a kind of modesty on my behalf that is winsome. “I felt so bad for you when I saw your dress rip. Your worst nightmare.”
I reach up and run my fingers through his wet hair, our eyes locked. In his smile I see the remnants of his fast action. Those worried eyes are hollow, carrying echoes of the receding panic that drove him to override his own instinct, too.
For me.
“Your worst nightmare, too,” I say, looking pointedly at the cake, the flowers, the whole garden.
“No.”
“No what?”
“Being outside like this and at risk for a wasp sting isn’t my worst nightmare anymore, Amanda.”
“Then what is?”
“Losing you.”
My breathing quickens at his words, the heat from his touch and the gentle relief that comes from being with him now, in such a dark moment, buoying me. I’m floating on his sacrifice, on my freedom, the sense that I’ve faced my entrenched fear and lived in spite of it.
I’m being loved because of it.
He cradles my cheek with one hand, still kicking, the water brushing against my stockinged legs. “Amanda, I—”
“If you two are done with your—” Marie waves her hand “—whatever you call this, we’d like to resume the, you know, giant wedding that is taking place right here with the thousand people who are all staring at you two, the heroine and the hero!”
People tap camera phones. The professional photographers use flashes here and there.
Great.
I’m naked in public and on camera.
And I don’t care.
I turn back to Andrew.
“Remember that first date at Consuela’s rooftop garden?”
“Yes.”
“You asked me what my biggest fear was.”
“Yes.”
“I lied,” I confess.
Unless I’m mistaken, Mr. Andrew James McCormick, CEO of Anterdec Industries and competitive swimmer, has tears in his eyes. The sunlight makes them shine, his brown irises shimmering beneath.
“And?”
“My biggest fear was that being with you wasn’t real.”
“Oh,” he says, the word like a pained sigh, as if I’ve punctured his heart. “I want to be real with you, Amanda. More than anything in the world. I thought bowing out of the wedding would save everyone from risk. I never wanted to put Declan in the position of having my life in his hands. Never wanted to put you in a place where you’d experience the—” His words break off, segmented by a harsh sound of being overcome by intensity. “Where you’d know what it’s like to watch your world turn out to be more fragile than you expected, and to see it all fall apart without being able to stop it.”
Fragile.
“I know.” I’m crying now, my words unfiltered, my thoughts racing as everything I feel for him rushes out of me. “I know why you walked away. I just didn’t know how to fix it.”
“Watching you risk everything just now and seeing you—oh, God—it made me understand that the biggest risk isn’t dying. It isn’t even being left behind to pick up the pieces.” He smooths my hair away from my face, his thumb on my cheekbone, his hand steadying me. “It’s the mistake of never trying.”
I start to shiver uncontrollably.
Andrew peels off his shirt, bobbing in the water and dipping beneath the surface. As he comes up, he urges me back from the side of the pool by an inch, and then guides one of my hands into the wet armhole.
“Ow!” I cry out.
I look at my hand. It’s swollen, covered in nasty welts from the scratches, and the spot he touched has two clear puncture marks.
Horror fills his face, his hair wet and plastered against his forehead. “You fought to free the animals underwater while they did this to you?” he asks in a voice filled with disbelief.
I shrug. But because I’m shivering, I just look like I’m twitching. All his words run through my mind in a blur, and I want to talk and touch and feel and spend every waking minute with him, but all my energy is leaking out of me so fast. Too fast.
He takes the shirt and drapes it over my front. Gently, he moves me off the side of the pool and clasps me in an embrace, my breasts mashed up against his wet shirt. Warmth pours out of him like melted love, heated to just the right temperature. I stop shivering and let out a long, grateful sigh of relief.
Andrew laughs, his throat working hard, his eyes so full of—dare I say it?—love. “Is this,” he says, looking pointedly at my wet, cotton-covered top, “real enough for you?”
And then he kisses me so hard he makes me really, truly real.
“I love you,” he rasps against my neck. “I never thought I could feel this way about anyone in my life, and I’ve been such an ass thinking that I was somehow saving you from the pain of risk with me. What I didn’t realize was that the pain of not being together was worse than the pain of losing you. I wasn’t saving you anything by walking away. I was just making life agony for us both.”
He looks at me, his face filled with a dawning earnestness.
“I love you too, Andrew. I truly do,” I whisper, amazed at how real the words feel.
When he kisses me, there is a stillness like I felt minutes ago underwater, but instead of struggling not to breathe, I feel like I have inhaled all the air in the world and absorbed every bit of love.
“There goes the maid of honor,” Marie howls. “She’s useless now! Carol, you’re her understudy. Get over there!”
Carol looks completely confused and Andrew moves us to the edge of the lily pond pool where a set of stairs leads up. Shannon’s standing next to Declan, and both them wave, Shannon’s face split into a grin of pure joy that reflects into the courtyard like a lighthouse beam. She splits from him, walking toward me.
“Follow me,” he says, keeping my front pressed against him, walking with a smooth, steady series of steps until we’re out of the water, where the paramedic runs over, throwing a thick fleece and wool blanket over my shoulders, finally giving me some modesty.
“I can’t lose you again, Amanda. I’m so sorry,” Andrew says as the paramedic asks me questions and tends to the bites and scratches all over my arms. The antiseptic he spreads liberally stings, but compared to the saltwater pool, it’s heaven.
“You won’t lose me. Ever.” We share a smile I’ve been waiting to give my whole life.
“Amanda!” Mom crushes me with a side hug. “I can’t believe how brave you were!” She turns to Andrew, her eyes red from crying. “And you!” She forces Andrew to let her hug him. He waggles his eyebrows at me over her shoulder, but he takes the embrace, giving it right back.
Spritz
y is at my feet, licking my stocking-covered toes.
“Mr. McCormick! Mr. McCormick!” shouts Jordan, who is running over, cradling a wet wool sock.
Wait.
That’s Muffin.
Andrew, James, Declan and Terry all turn toward the little man, who approaches James.
“Thank you so, so much, Mr. McCormick, for saving my precious Muffin! You were so brave to use that pool skimmer and to pluck her out of her watery grave. I am forever in your debt.”
And then he bows and actually takes James’ hand, kissing his ring.
“What?!” I am about to blow a gasket. Jordan must hear me going nuclear, because he slowly cranes his neck toward me, eyes bulging out with the hard look of sanctimony.
Andrew tries not to laugh, but I can feel his body bouncing with mirth. “Hashtag doghater,” he whispers in my ear, giving me an affectionate squeeze.
I growl back.
“You!” Jordan’s fingers are long, like a surgeon’s, and when he points at me I feel like an accused witch in a seventeenth-century Salem trial. “You tried to kill my Muffin again.”
“Oh, brother,” I mutter. “OW!” I squeal as the paramedic puts something that stings all over a bite. The physical pain doesn’t distract me from the indignity of being unfairly accused yet again.
He turns to James, red-faced and righteous. “When we went on our date, she threw rocks at my mama’s little dog! And now she tried to drown Muffin!”
“She saved your dog!” Andrew says, starting to stand up and confront Jordan, who is shaking as hard as his mama’s teacup Chihuahua now.
I reach up with my good hand and pull Andrew back to the chair next to mine. “Not worth it. Don’t even try to reason with him.”
“Hold on,” Andrew says, halting. “Date? Did he say date? You dated him?”
“Yes. For work.”
Whatever laughter Andrew has been holding back comes rushing out, his body bent in half, his gloriously unclothed chest and back on display as he lets it all out.
“And—” Andrew gasps “—I was worried about...” He’s so amused by all of it that I can’t help but join in, our laughter more than just relief. We’re joyfully celebrating the unspoken brilliance of living each minute and taking what life throws our way. No more guessing. No more fear.
Vote Then Read: Volume III Page 200